Diane Clements is camera shy and usually avoids being the center of attention, her friends will tell you. But they also will tell you she deserves the attention.

"She works her behind off," said volunteer Bruce Esber while mashing potatoes at First Christian Church. "This girl is amazing. It is just amazing what she does."

Clements, the director of kitchen ministries at First Christian Church, organizes Thanksgiving dinner for nearly 10,000 people with the help of 600-plus volunteers. Her partners include volunteers at River Tree Christian Church in Jackson Township, Perry Christian Church and North Canton Church of Christ. First Christian delivers 3,400 of those meals.

"I started doing this to feed the need, not for myself," she said. "It chokes me up to see all these people come and volunteer their time for this. I could not do it if it weren't for them. So, it just isn't me. It is all of us."

But Clements is the one who got the turkey cooking, so to speak.

"She has been doing this for 20 years," said Diane Evans, another volunteer. "She spearheads all of this. It is Diane's mission, and it has been my pleasure to serve with her. It has been a gift to me."

DIANE'S MISSION

Why does she spend every Thanksgiving from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the kitchen at First Christian Church making sure everyone else has a hot meal on the holiday?

"I was probably in high school, I thought, 'wouldn't it be cool to serve the poor on Thanksgiving,' " she said.

Several years later, her dream became a reality. "I worked at The Parisian Co. for 13 years downtown, and I saw all these poor people. It made my desire to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for them even greater."

When she started working at the church, she knew she could complete her mission.

"It isn't only the poor. We serve shut-ins — the people who are alone and don't have anyone to spend the holiday with."

Often times, she would get letters from people thanking her for dinner. Some would put a dollar in an envelope.

"These are people on fixed incomes, but they wanted to give something back. It is not our church project, it is the community. We probably have 1,000 people involved in this. For many, it has become a family tradition. It is awesome."

She and her early morning crew — Chuck Schuster, Barry Adelman, Esber, and Tom "Wally" Lewis — are at First Christian between 4:30 and 5 a.m. every Thanksgiving to get food ready.

When they first started this tradition 20 years ago, Clements said, the program started off small, feeding about 60 people at the church when it was next to the main Post Office. But that wasn't enough.

Page 2 of 2 - "We thought, maybe people just couldn't get out to come to us. So now, we go to them, and the project has grown," she said. "This year, we are serving 9,638 people."

She said the other churches work just as hard for the people they serve.

KEEPING IT LIGHT

It isn't all work at First Christian on Thanksgiving morning.

"There is always something to laugh about," Clements said, explaining that often times there is not enough cooked corn for the dinner and they turn to Adelman, the corn supervisor, saying, " 'Barry, we are out of corn!' It is just a running joke, every year."

They have six 18-quart roasters filled with corn, and as it is used up, more is added. Thursday morning, she forgot to turn on the coffee maker.

The response from her crew? Laughter. They teased her that "being a star" is more important than turning the coffee on. And so it goes at 6 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.

On a more serious note, Adelman said, "Diane works 24 hours a day preparing for this day. It is a big effort for a lot of people, but she works 10 times harder than anyone else."

Clements admits she is up early every morning worrying about what needs to be done, making sure she has ordered enough turkeys and other food and materials needed for the meal. "It is a lot of work, it consumes me the week before Thanksgiving. There is always something."

FRIENDS AND VOLUNTEERS

Church member Sara Jayne Harding Dray said, "Diane has served the community for so long. She is a talented person with unrivaled expertise in organization and a willingness to serve others. She is the driving force behind these Thanksgiving Day dinners."

She is amazing, said Laura Milano, another church member and volunteer.

"When she started working here, she said she wanted to do community service, and this is Diane's baby."